A photograph "Near Bantry, County Kerry, Ireland, 1962" by Henri Cartier-Bresson used by @libe to illustrate coverage of my 2004 @PNASNews paper, global effects of sulfur deposition on wetland methane emissions in the 20th & 21st Centuries #worldwetlandsday #blastfromthepast 1/n

The paper detailed how 20th Century sulfur pollution found in acid rain was suppressing wetland methane emissions but pollution abatement strategies might mean that the suppressive effect would decline into the 21st Century leading to higher CH4 emissions https://www.pnas.org/content/101/34/12583

Even though the photograph was black & white, something didn’t seem to jive with freshwater wetlands we were modelling. The lichen zonation on the rocks to the left seemed to suggest a marine environment (I later found out that Bantry is on the Irish coast). #worldwetlandsday

That said, it was an appropriate choice as marine wetlands tend to be less productive in terms of their emissions due to the high sulfate content of sediments. Sulfate reduction is an energetically more favourable form of C degradation than methane production #worldwetlandsday

The work went on to excite the imagination of one Alexander Loy @LoyTeam & @SulfurMicrobes who devoted a great deal of energy to identifying some of these sulfate metabolizing microbes that were directing carbon degradation away from methanogensis #WorldWetlandsDay

A couple of years ago, Alex got in touch to let me know that they’d published a paper identifying these novel bacteria and they gave me the honour of naming one of them Sulfotelmatomonas gaucii after me. The full citation is in the attached image #WorldWetlandsDay

Someday when this whole COVID situ is over I hope to meet up with Alex and his team in Vienna to discuss their excellent work. Thank you @LoyTeam ! #WorldWetlandsDay

All stories in that August issue of @libe were illustrated with photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson to commemorate the passing of the great photographer. #WorldWetlandsDay #blastfromthepast